Page 20 of Win Some Love Some
Roy grunted. “You should go talk to her. It’s the Fall Festival. Buy her a hot dog. Shake her out of her mood.”
“I think it goes a little deeper than that,” I told him.
“How would you know? You haven’t talked to her.”
It was meant to be a criticism. Roy knew his daughter was suffering and he wanted to circle the wagons around her. And he still considered me one of those wagons.
“I’ll talk to her,” I said. I didn’t know what good it would do. Not with how we were with one another now. But Roy was right. I had to try.
I could call her out for the bullshit of not answering a single text I’d sent. Ghosting me wasn’t going to make the shit happening in her life any less real. Besides, I could help her. I didn’t know exactly how, but if she’d just talk to me, I’d figure it out.
“You got your keys?” I asked Roy.
He grunted and showed me he had them in his hand. “Also, don’t forget about tomorrow.”
Right. He wanted me to look at the boat’s engine. “You know I’m better with cars than boats.”
“Engine’s an engine,” he said.
“Fine, but I make no promises,” I told him.
“First thing. I don’t dawdle in the morning.”
Inwardly, I groaned. First thing meant before sunrise. “I’ll be there.”
I wiped my hands as best I could before I tossed the grease rag aside and jogged across the street to Nora Barnes, the center of everything.
“Hey, squirt,”I said, just to see her wince.
“Nick,” she said, around a mouthful of chocolate cupcake.
“You okay?” I sat next to her on the bench. And even though there were inches between us, she still shifted away. We were magnets now flipped the wrong way – all I did was repel her.
“Yep.”
“I saw…” I started and stopped.
I saw you got hurt. I saw you fall for the wrong guy. I saw everyone on the planet calling you an idiot and I wanted to tell them all how un-fucking true it was.
“Nick. Let’s not recap.”
I nodded and folded my hands between my knees.
“I called,” I said. I’d been calling for years. Sometimes I’d get a thumb emoji back. Her only acknowledgement that I’d reached out.
For her birthday. My birthday. Last 4thof July I sent her videos of the Calico Cove fireworks. I called her whenever I caught the dinner party episode of The Office, because once when we’d watched it together, she’d laughed so hard she’d farted and nearly lost her shit she was so embarrassed.
I’d called her right after that video she posted. The one that brought her whole world crashing down around her.
All alone in her bedroom, wild-eyed and scared. She’d looked like a disaster survivor.
Hey, everyone. I think…I think Rene is a thief. A con man. I think I’ve let a con man steal all my money. I don’t know what to do.
The plan had been for me and Roy to fly over to Paris and get her, but Nora called Roy off. She was adamant about settling what she could on her own before getting a flight home.
“I know,” she said.
“Texted a few hundred times too.” I didn’t have to say it. She had the texts in her phone. Most of them some variation of TALK. TO. ME.
